Twitterific.

The ever-brilliant Steven Meisel flips a switch and brings digital technology to the printed page. His latest editorial for Vogue Italia features a paper Twitter feed filled with supermodels in grainy cell phone-like pics. The layout matches the blue bird's site exactly and I had to resist the urge to mouse and click the mag pages.

Meisel's Twitterific layout that features the heavy hitters of modeling: Kristen, Freja, Linda, Hannah, Agy and others.

It's pretty phenomenal and fearless of a photographer who has made his major mark in print to embrace the quick-shot, usually low quality product that the Twitter tech offers. Meisel is a genius of the magazine medium, and even though the medium is dwindling, I'm sure he'll transition nicely. I'll be sad when all of the fashion photos I view glow rather than crinkle, but I'm open to change. I think it's inevitable, and so does Steven Meisel apparently.

Italians Do It Better.

Let's try and forget about Anna and her American Vogue empire for just a second. In terms of provocative, artistic achievement Italian Vogue is the true top of the fashion magazine heap. It has been for years. The cover of the Italian edition of the fashion bible has launched a thousand models' careers from Kristen McMenamy to Karen Elson. The partnership of the publication and photographer Steven Meisel has yielded shoots as innovative and notorious as Super Mods Go To Rehab, and the all black issue.

Meisel shots from Italian Vogue's all black issue, and their editorial that cheekily sent supermodels to rehab a la Lindsay and Britney.

While Meisel is the maestro in charge of shooting the superb content, none of the magazine's insanely good material would ever come to be without the pub's editor in cheif, Ms. Franca Sozzani.

Sozzani has a surfeit of laudable qualities. She's softer than Roitfeld and eons more daring than Wintour. Her humble demeanor and undeniable talent has won her legions of fashion insider fans and more praise than one can proffer in a reasonable lifetime. Sozzani's sartorial style is as admired as her editing skills. Her soft mane of blond waves compliments her striking baby blue eyes in a way that leaves her looking angelic and gentle. Yet, she dresses like a sharp Milanese woman; her choices leave her looking sophisticated and stunning. Here, watch her talk about transforming the magazine from a trade rag to an international phenomenon over the past 20 years:



She's an icon.

Collector's Item

July has come and gone, but the beautiful Italian Vogue issue featuring all black models shot by Steven Meisel is still a hot item.

Conde Nast had to reprint the issue to get more copies onto sold out newsstands. Publicity stunt or not, it is a gorgeous exercise in calling attention to an easily overlooked issue. I've always wondered what it does to people of color to be surrounded by images of what they are not. Well, here are stunning images of what they are: beautiful. The white models in nearly all of the magazine's ads look a little pale in comparison.